Joe Buglewicz / AP
People walk through a hallway Jan. 5, 2022, before the opening of the main show floor at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas. In 2019, about 42 million people visited the Las Vegas area, though that number was cut in half in 2020 because of the pandemic. Last year, Las Vegas rebounded, welcoming about 32 million visitors.
Wednesday, March 23, 2022 | 2 a.m.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has released its annual visitor profile study after a one-year hiatus.
The report is an in-depth peek at the habits of the millions of people who visit Southern Nevada each year.
In 2019, about 42 million people visited the Las Vegas area, though that number was cut in half in 2020 because of the pandemic. Last year, Las Vegas rebounded, welcoming about 32 million visitors. That’s despite lagging international air travel and the lasting effects of the pandemic on business travel.
Here are five takeaways from the the 62-page report, which is based on about 4,000 interviews with visitors.
More with less
Las Vegas visitors, on average, spent more on gambling in 2021 than they did in 2019, before the pandemic.
The authority’s research showed the average gaming budget to be over $700 per person, up from $590 per person in 2019.
The percentage of visitors who said they gambled while in Las Vegas in 2021, however, was down 5% from 81% in 2019.
In December, Nevada casinos recorded a 10th consecutive month of $1 billion or more in house winnings. For the year, casinos tallied a record $13.4 billion in winnings, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
In 2019, Nevada casinos reported about $12 billion in winnings.
California is king
The majority of visitors to Las Vegas last year hailed from California, with a population of over 39 million.
About 30% of all visitors last year were from California, and the vast majority of those came from Southern California.
Six of every 10 were from the western United States — up from 47% in 2019 — and just over half of all visitors arrived by car.
Largely because of suppressed international travel since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, nearly all visitors to Las Vegas last year were U.S. residents.
Only 3% were from foreign counties, down from 14% in 2019. In 2018, some 20% of the 42 million people who visited Las Vegas were international travelers.
No diversity scarcity
In 2018 and 2019, a significant percentage of visitors to Southern Nevada were white, but that changed in a big way in 2021, according to the report.
Last year, 56% of all tourists were white. Nearly doubling the number from 2019, 17% of visitors last year were African American.
A total of 19% of visitors last year were Hispanic or Latino, up from 11% in 2019.
The percentage of tourists aged 65 and up dropped last year, likely due to a reluctance from many seniors to travel, especially by air, due to coronavirus health and safety concerns, the report said.
Only 12% of all visitors in 2021 were 65 or over, down from 19% in 2019 and 2018.
Those under 21 were far more likely to visit Las Vegas last year, with 21% of visitors saying at least one person under 21 was in their travel party. That represented an increase of 16 percentage points from 2019.
Convention blues
In 2019, about 6.6 million attended a convention or trade show in Las Vegas. That dropped to just 1.7 million in 2020 because of the global reluctance to travel during the pandemic.
Last year, the industry rebounded slightly, welcoming 2.2 million visitors to Las Vegas, a third of the number before the pandemic’s onset.
During a normal year, the popular CES gadget show — the largest show on the Las Vegas convention calendar — would draw close to 170,000 visitors.
In 2021, fewer than 50,000 people attended the show, and only 4% of Las Vegas visitors reported they were in town for a corporate convention or meeting, down from 9% in 2019.
There are signs, however, of promise for the industry.
During multiple recent quarterly earnings calls, executives for some of the biggest resort companies in Las Vegas have expressed optimism for convention bookings for the rest of 2022 and into 2023.
The LVCVA — which works to recruit trade shows — also recently announced the addition of the Sweets & Snacks Expo in 2026 and the Mobile World Congress convention in September.
Since in-person meetings and conventions returned last summer, Las Vegas has hosted 66 trade shows, according to the LVCVA.
The demise of the travel agent
As recently as 2016, some 13% of visitors to Las Vegas used a travel agent to plan their trips, but that figure has dropped significantly.
Just 3% of those surveyed for the 2021 visitor profile said they used a travel agent.
Once they arrived, 35% said they used a ride-sharing service to help them get around town, up from 28% in 2019 and 13% in 2016.
